Molecular cloning of cDNA encoding porcine interleukin-15

Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is a recently identified growth and differentiation factor with an important potential role in the initial immune responses to infection. To enable the study of the role of this cytokine in the protective immune-mechanisms generated against parasitic diseases of swine, cDNA was generated from a macrophage enriched adherent cell population from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). This cDNA was used for the enzymatic amplification of the porcine IL-15 sequence using human IL-15-derived primers. The open-reading frame of the porcine IL-15 cDNA is 486 base pairs (bp) in length and encodes a 162-amino-acid (aa) protein. Comparisons of the predicted swine protein sequence with those predicted from human, bovine and mouse IL-15 sequences indicate similarities of 82.1, 84.6, and 71.6%, respectively. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.